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The ROOTS Of Honoring The Game And Sportsmanship

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“Honoring the Game” is a Positive Coaching Alliance principle about sportsmanship encouraging leaders, coaches, parents and athletes to respect all aspects of their sport. The ROOTS of Honoring the Game is an acronym which stands for better respecting: Rules, Opponents, Officials, Teammates and Self.

Rules
The rules of a sport have been developed and modified for a reason. Rules keep the game fair, and they also keep athletes safe. Don’t try to work against the rules or bend them; respect the role they play in your sport.

Opponents
As you want respect, give respect to your opponents. As Jim Thompson suggests in his book, “fierce and friendly” opponents are what we should strive to be and have in competition.

Officials
Officials are doing the best they can to enforce the rules and maintain a safe environment for play. They are people too, doing the best they can, and there is never an excuse for disrespecting officials.

Teammates
Make your teammates proud by doing the best you can (on and off the field) and by supporting them in all their efforts.

Self
Finally, and most importantly, you have to respect yourself in order to uphold an honorable approach to sports. Set high standards and live up to them.

In this excerpt, you’ll find a further explanation of these ROOTS, as well as a worksheet to help you develop Honoring the Game routines. Explore having your athletes officiate at practice, making bad calls to see how your team will respond and much more.

This PDF was excerpted from Jim Thompson’s book Elevating Your Game. To purchase the entire book, and to learn more about other PCA books, click here.

These books are used in PCA’s live workshops. To learn more about our interactive student-athlete workshops, click here.

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